Two decades have passed since the demonic denizens, Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, wandered the world of Sanctuary in a vicious rampage to shackle humanity into unholy slavery. Yet for those who battled the Prime Evils directly, the memory fades slowly and the wounds of the soul still burn.

News broke today about Diablo 3's brand new player controlled economy allowing players to sell their hard earned loot for gold and cash. This means a few things for players, the first is that there will be no "offline". The entire game will require an active internet connection to make sure that players are not gaming the system, and unfortunately this also means the death of modding for the IP.

Blizzard_FAQ wrote:For a variety of gameplay and security reasons, we will not be supporting bots or mods in Diablo III, and they'll be expressly prohibited by our terms of use for the game.

Expressly prohibited, not just unsupported but illegal by the Diablo 3 ToS. A sad day considering how big and active the Diablo 2 modding community still is. Will we still see new mods and updates for Diablo 2 in-spite of this announcement or will the players merge over to the game similar to the Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 modding scene?

I suppose it is good news for indie developers, with top indie games like Minecraft, Mount & Blade, Amnesia and most others, really focusing on their modding tools. Will be great to see awesome mods continue to come from the community for those games.

Whats wrong with the game producers today? Being greedy is one thing but this is just a bloody shame. Every somehow promising game turns out to be just a massive pile of **** made without any love or passion.

Pulling away the mod support (same as BF3) cuts away all of the possibilities dedicate gamers have. I miss the old times where games were made for fun, to pleasure the customer, made so you could purely enjoy all the hours sitting infront of a screen/monitor.

To true. I don't see a reason to play this. Hell I've been disappointed by a game I've been waiting ages for (DNF). I don't see any reason to buy Diablo 3 if they take this MMO and no modding route... and I will also be delaying my purchase of DNF till it has modding support. Man has Blizzard seriously dropped the ball on this. I heard some backlash on SC2 as well.

How many times have companies attempted to prevent mods being made. In the end some programmer will manage to beat the game and release tools for it. It happens with Starcraft. Everyone thought it was impossible to edit (except for the editor that came with the game), but theres always ways around these things. Same thing with offline play.

I personally don't even really care, sure it sucks that there is no modding for it, but who gives a crap if there is a real money store in it. now if it gave you items that were BETTER like in some mmo's (which this is not whoever said they were making it), it's just hey, i found this item i'm gonna sell it cause none of my characters will use it, and then you can either choose to get gold or cash. personally i'll probably use the gold marketplace quite a bit. and the internet connection kinda sucks, but what everyone seems to think, is it's new. C%C 4 did it, blizzard already did it with sc2. everyone freaking out about this is completely ridiculous. I can understand the frustration with no modding though, cause i love my6 mods for Half-life 2, couldn't imagine a half life 3 without mods

Have to say this is one of the more depressing topics yet. Incredibly disappointed in people. Numerous excuses/failed justifications for pirating games (complaining about features that are there to prevent just that).

I'm extremely unhappy with the lack of mod support and requirement to be online at all times but the shop doesn't directly affect anyone unless they choose to participate in it and that's the closest thing to an MMO there is and only handles what D1 and D2 were doing in the beginning. If you want to play D3 with friends and ignore the shop you can, you know that right?

We don't always get what we want but what's with the over the top hate?

Some of you need to read your comments and take a moment to either do your research or at the very least think on em a bit. Common sense goes a long way :) If not for yourself then your fellow players. I'm still not sure if I'm grabbing D3 but if I do I'll know it's not for mod support and everything's online these days anyways so not really hurting there either.

Alright, I've read enough. You must be some astro-turfing PR dude for Blizzard (et al.). First of all, cop to your scum-baggery right now and also name your sock-puppet. You know, the one who brings up Piracy so that the topic is moved from the stupidity of persistent online DRM and NO EFFING MOD SUPPORT!

Next, give the Mod community a REAL apology for this treachery. Their Mod content kept selling your ancient games Blizzard (effin' ey!)!

I like now that Bliz is with Activision the massive Blizzard love is lost and/or forgotten. If you don't know who I am then you're not really a proper member of this community heh (not saying I'm well liked but seriously). I don't have to explain AGAIN the stupidity behind piracy and I wasn't just complaining about that but others like you TROLLOLOLOLOLO.

Your answers just sounded too apologetic on Blizzard's behalf and it struck a nerve.

I agree that Piracy in retaliation is a dumb tactic...

But lets not be pacified by calls to reason and sympathy for the publisher. DRM is eroding the concept of product ownership and consumer attrition to products with draconian DRM is a loss of rights for all who value the independence of product ownership. We are heading down a path where all things are for rent only, maybe someday the very organs of our body will cease to function if we don't keep that persistent DRM connection linked and our rent paid.

Well just wanted to say how big i'm sick of today's gaming industry. This news particulary is the biggest of all, killing game like this only for profit really makes me sick and you developers should think about for whom are you making this game. Where are those times when games were just made for fun and entertainment...

Its basically the same ******** system AC 2 tried to use but failed so bad at that they didnt use it in brotherhood. Was a pain in the *** for costumers and pirates alike. I heard that the new driver game is using it too.

What is more funny is that they imagine they can stop piracy by creating a new system. But the truth is, every system is beatable. The cracking teams nodoubt will find it as a good challenge. I remember when all the cracking teams raced eachother of who will have the glory of cracking the mighty AC 2 that ubisoft worked on so hard.

I also find it wierd that the developers for example see that a program has been pirated 5 million times, and they suddely imagine that they lost 5 million costumers. WRONG, most of the people who pirate games, will never ever buy them them. Max number of costumers they probably loose from 5 million is like 500k. And those who will not buy these nonpiratable games will just move on to inde or retro games.

I suggest you dont buy diablo 3. Because eversince Blizzard became the supreme nonquestionable ruler in the gamingindusty, they only have dollarsigns on their eyeballs.

yes its quite a money making scheme like DLC, HD remakes, preorders... I think the difference is that DLC and HD remakes are universally detested (or at least most of them are, there are some exceptions) so marketplace and preorders I think are the only legitimate cash milking scheme that I don't have a problem with.

I for one can't say that I won't ever buy this game. I'm sure I will sometime in the future, although I can say without a doubt I won't be buying it on the release day.

What I do have to say though is that with being a Diablo I and Diablo II addict, those two games sucking away many hours of my day - both online and offline play - I am extremely disappointed at this move.

Maybe because I have some mild form of OCD, but I'll be buying this to complete my Diablo Collection. It is still extremely disappointing, and disheartening to hear of this news. I for one will be sticking with Diablo II and it's mods for many years to come along with many of my old(er) computer games.

Oh and one last thing: **** you Activision, and **** you Blizzard. Way to go, you're screwing an epic franchise over. Nice job, *********.

I think you should hold off on the purchase until the game gets cheaper, don't let them get your hard earned money.. or until they decide to give it modding support. MODDB is in a uproar and I think we shouldn't let this injustice stand.

I don't think this game having no mod support will affect me so much that I would have to pirate it or not buy it at all. But having to always be online to play the game really ****** me off. What about long car rides, playing at someone elses house without internet, etc etc. I guess piracy a harmless thing to do at first glance has got ourselves as gamers in a deeper hole.

activision needs the money, blizzard doesnt... so activision i believe is making the call saying NO MODS... shame, i enjoyed playing mods for diablo and it was fun... i miss the new monsters and BEYOND HELL modes that make the game incredibly harder to the point where you can only get hit once and die even by weakling monsters... anywho... whatever, they will still make millions if not billions from us pawns :P

it is also sad and true that blizzard hasnt been much for the modding community... even with warcraft 3, but still this is a new low for even them. not surprising specially since they are now co-owned by vivendi(i think) and EA.

Blizzard died when North was closed. All that remains now is Activision's whores. Let us hope that our industrious Taiwanese brethren who are crafting LAN for SC2 can assist us in circumventing this travesty.

Just to put my 2 cents here:
1. No mods, well, i haven't modded D2 in my lifetime and i still enjoyed the game enough to prepare my pre-order. As to DLC's and stuff, blizzard is last developer i expect to see any form of DLC from, they always expanded game with expansion packs that were really expanding the gameplay.
2. This Auction House is to prevent any scams while buying items(if someone wants to do it he would find outside source anyway), and blizzard doesn't generate items that are put on AH, players do, so all this "omg itz f2p nao" have no sense at all. If items have to be actually dropped, then high-tier stuff prices will be simply insane, simply due to it's rarity, so i wouldn't worry about it too much.

"Hi, I'm a consumer and features in the product line I've been loyal to are being taken away. It's cool. I am perfectly happy with their business plan and the profiteering at my expense. I'm also happy to see them promoting a business practice that erodes the very notion of product ownership. I'm just a happy little guy."

Auction House?!?! In a singleplayer game! You have to login to there servers to play...a "SINGLEPLAYER" game!?!?!

First off I say loss the auction house if anything just get rid of the auctionhouse, or you'll loss gameplay. Whats the point of a item based game if you can just buy power! Whats to stop someone from farming gold then going to the auction house and buying the best item for there gold or real money for that matter?!

On to my second point.

What if you wanna play LAN or on a plane?
You know what the DEV team said to that? "Well you should play other games on a plane." Yeah I guess we'll play "TORCHLIGHT 2" or "GRIM DAWN" and not even bother with your game.

Oh and no modding?!?!

This game is going to have a VERY VERY short life span. Modding is one of the main reasons I and many others still play D2 and its over 11 years old.

The community of diablo waits what, like 10 years for a sequel and you give use this?!? A game the has no modding support and is in fact illegal to do so, and an auctionhouse which will ultimately destroy the gameplay and PVP! All this game is to the DEV team is a CASHGRAB with fancy graphics, nothing more nothing less.

TotalBiscuit has a very good argument about this matter on his youtube channel. The DEV team should really listen to him.Youtube.com

FAIL. What does a virtual marketplace have to do with mods? They'll already have to either validate installations to prevent cheating or host items on Blizzard servers, so how do mods make that job any harder?

This is a serious S***!!! Can´t play without internet and no mods?!?!?!. Capcom make the same for the new sf4.
WTF Diablo is THE SINGLE PLAYER GAME, Blizzard tries to make all their games in morpgs or what????

I've been kinda on the fence about this one for a while. On one hand, Diablo 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. On the other hand, the only people working on Diablo 3 are the people working on the shittiest aspects of the rest of the Blizzard games. This is kind of the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm not going to buy it as the only aspects that I was excited to see are not going to be included. I'm not going to pirate it either, because I really feel no need to play a game that I wouldn't pay money for. Blizzard insists on widening the gap between the player and the developer, and that is the opposite of what I want to see. From here on out I'm refraining from buying (or pirating) any Blizzard products. They'll still make money, but they're not getting any from me until they change their stance on what gaming is about. This probably won't put a dent in their earnings or be significant in any way, but I'll be content with myself knowing that I'm not supporting their disrespectful attitude towards the communities of gamers who keep giving them chances.